The DirectXchange was really designed with us in mind. There’s not many opportunities to throw an X in the middle of a name, but we’ve had that going on for quite some time now. Admittedly we never used the capital X, but that’s really just a design thing.

The theme of Marketing to the Minds of Catalog and eTail Shoppers is exactly where we fit into the blending of your catalog with your eCommerce experience. Finding the right balance is critical as there are shoppers that are very familiar with the catalog. Usage analytics will tell you that some of them truly enjoy browsing through the online catalog and ordering what they see presented on the page.

There are still several things that the catalog does particularly well. Kohler puts it very simply in their new bathroom catalog, Kohler ECO Bathrooms.

Painting a picture for the user of what the product can potentially look like can inspire them to make the purchase. Moving quickly through the pages, the user has a wide selection of image scenes presented in a way that marketing and graphics still to better than anyone else.

Catalogs also help solidify your brand. The print catalog delivered in the mail may not have the same impact of the Sears Christmas catalogs from days gone by. However whenMacKenzie Childs incorporates their catalog into the overall brand mission, the online version of that catalog becomes an instantly recognizable asset that users are willing to shop.

Lastly the catalog is an essential reminder that you are still there and offers a compelling reason to purchase from your store. Catalogs and flyers can be used as a weekly, monthly, or quarterly reminder that the user should go back to your store be it online or brick and mortar. Spurring the user to an action is one of the more powerful reasons to get the catalog into their hands in both print and online.

The appealing part of the DirectXchange is that it’s an opportunity to share your experience with others, while learning new ideas about what is working for colleagues in your industry. Additionally the networking events that allow you to connect with both contemporaries and suppliers are critical to building long term relationships that are mutually beneficial. We’re excited to meet(and maybe share a drink?) with our business partners in attendance as well as meet new movers and shakers in the retail and catalog marketing space.

$550-$2500! That is what it costs to ship (50) 7lb catalogs to a tradeshow booth. Once these giants of print are unloaded ready for you start handing them out, you notice the struggle, it’s real! Carrying around a 7lb catalog is cumbersome and a nuisance for your booth visitors. And there’s always a chance you could run out of catalogs. Having a few print catalogs can be a part of a cohesive booth layout, but here is a better way to present and distribute your catalog information.

Why is a digital catalog better at a trade show? It doesn’t cost anything to ship and it offers the tools to share catalog content specifically for show attendees. Providing the entire catalog is easily accomplished with an offline version loaded onto a USB. For real time presentations, at the trade show, use the USB version on a large screen and watch users navigate the pages, shop for products, and create order forms. Once attendees are done interacting with the digital catalog, ask them about their experience and hand them a USB with the digital catalog on it. How impressive is that? They get to take home the catalog in their pocket with your brand on the USB, it’s an impactful way to add brand awareness.

Let’s take the trade show experience to the next level. The digital catalog is a powerful stand alone tool but when put into the hands of your sales team and combined with our Tear Pages options, it creates unlimited options of what can be shared with the prospect. Tear Pages adds a wealth of benefits to the digital catalog, empowering your sales team to create and share custom publications to the extent that they can be used as presentations! Prepared ahead of time or at the trade show, Tear Pages makes a lasting impression that can also be used as a post show follow up. You can’t go wrong with an interactive catalog that uses your existing investment in print without the actual and intrinsic cost of bringing the big books to the show!

Quickly — think of an industry that is still rooted in Adobe’s Flash technology?

Yes, a technology that has been on a downslide since the advent of smartphones; a technology that is nearing further disability from major browsers for its security vulnerabilities; and a technology that now exists in pseudonym (see “Adobe Animate”) because its creator so desperately wants to move on.

There are a few answers that come to mind, like computer gaming and video streaming, both of which are realizing the need to wriggle out of Flash’s development grips and find their way toward a more-reliable future. After all, Chrome and Firefox unexpectedly blocked Flash technology a little less than a year ago today. The block, though temporary, sent a grim message across the web to Flash developers: move on or risk having nothing.

The industry that Dirxion is concerned with, of course, is digital publishing. This industry is stubborn and resilient in its use of Flash, even though Adobe wants more to be recognized for its own transition to HTML5. Still today, nearly 10 years since the release of Apple’s first iPhone, most digital publishing kits are brought to you by Flash.

Each of these industries has been touched by Adobe Flash. Let that passive voice sink in for a moment. Anyone who has posted online advertising in the past five years has likely been relying heavily on Flash. It is that pervasive.

But now, nearly a year has passed since the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) laid out an overhaul to its display creative guidelines that make HTML5 the new standard in interactive marketing. The efforts further encourage agencies to move away from Adobe’s Flash, which for years has been the unofficial standard. It was a hugely-important-but-unsurprising move by IAB. It really marked the end of Adobe Flash, and here’s why.

Google said the move will “enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices.” It will also force a bevy of online advertisers to shape up before next year. Changes will come even sooner, with June 30, 2016, being a prominent date on which ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing. If things aren’t clear enough, Google deliberately points out that “it’s important to update your display ads to HTML5 before these dates.”

Some loyalty to Flash is easy to understand: since its invention, Flash has been the lifeblood to industries like digital publishing. Dirxion, along with everybody else providing such services, was at one point deeply entrenched in Flash.

But IAB, Google and a whole wide world of HTML5 developers wants to show us that Adobe Flash is the past, HTML5 is the future and too many of us are stuck in a messy in-between. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like there is an option, and it is mobile-or-bust in a smartphone-entranced society. HTML5 will eventually prevail.

It’s been a good year for the real estate market, and David Charron (real estate market expert) expects continued growth! Consumers purchasing new or used homes are a strong indication of future consumer purchases from furniture retailers. Retailers know that by offering multi-channel shopping options, consumers are more likely to purchase. Users want a digital catalog that’s a complement to both a print catalog and an e-commerce site.

Restoration Hardware make their printed sourcebooks a top priority and utilize the digital edition as an important complement to the print. Easily found on and tightly integrated with their website, their shoppers are able to switch from one sourcebook to the next while keeping the brand’s trademark style. Providing a one-of-a-kind shopping experience is the number one goal for our digital catalogs. The same can be said for MacKenzie-Childs. They care about giving their customers an engaging opportunity to shop through their catalog whether it’s in print or on any connected device.

Allow your customers to immerse themselves in an online catalog where they can interact and easily shop your furniture brand. Online activity drives retail sales more than ever, whether they browse online and then shop at brick and mortar or purchase directly from the online catalog.

We can’t really call this a year in review, because the projects we do for our customers have an ongoing, long-term value, and to classify them as in the past, doesn’t do the work justice. That said, we created some great new functionality and added elements to our products that met both specific customer needs and served users as a whole. We get really excited when talking about them, but listing all those items here in one place might be a bit overwhelming. Maybe, it’s better to classify how we helped and continue to serve a few customer types.

Let’s start with our retailers that produce a high quality print catalog. Our retailers saw increased page views and product clicks by bringing more elements of their existing e-commerce sites directly into the digital catalog. We make a point to be as tightly integrated with our customers sites as possible.

Our B-to-B catalog customers have placed a large emphasis on usage across all user groups. Special tools have been taken advantage of by sales teams to give them a selling advantage when using the catalog. New ways to feature their videos and foreign language catalogs were also introduced.

Dirxion is always on the lookout for new trends on how to engage users, so we enhanced the e-Edition newspaper archive experience and rolled out unique ways for our local search platform customers to generate great local content. Publishers taking advantage of these tools and integrating their digital directories have seen their visitors spending more time on the site and an overall increase in traffic.

If you didn’t get started with Dirxion in 2015, this year presents a great opportunity to take advantage of what we’ve done in the past and the exciting new projects we are working on for this year.

The old cliche goes ‘New Year, New You’. But I think it should be ‘New Year, New Password’.

Not a day goes by that I don’t see a report about hacking. We know the risks, but we don’t protect ourselves properly. There are a few measures we can take. For starters, make sure your computer has antivirus software installed. If you have Windows, Windows Microsoft Essentials offers free basic coverage with an option to upgrade. For Mac users, Avast is a great free option.

Once you’ve established good antivirus software, consider your passwords. When was the last time it was changed and how difficult is it to crack? I do believe changing your password too often can do more harm than good. You might not remember the new password which could lead to a paper trail with your password written down somewhere for all to see. Consider the difficulty of your password. Trustno1 — Trust us, you don’t want Trustno1 as your password. It’s on the common top 25 list according to BGR. Avoid using personal information such as your name, children’s name, birthdates and team names.

Password ideas. Acronyms are always a good choice! For instance:
Red Pepper for Lunch and Dinner Keep the Doctor Away!
RPLDKda>!

Changing your password once a year is a preventable measure to help minimize risk. If you suspect your account has been compromised change your password immediately. And make sure to have a great, anti-hacking new year!

The first mobile software update that allows content blocking is here. For the first time, the new iOS 9 update will allow users to install apps that block trackers, advertisements and other unwanted content. For the user this is great, as the most noticeable change will be that their web pages load faster. Load times using the Crystal app were remarkably faster. The Next Web did side by side comparisons of pages loading, one without Crystal and one with. The results were pretty telling. Check it out.

According to tapinfluence “Ad blockers will cost publishers nearly $22 billion in revenue this year”. That’s a staggering number. If you rely on online advertising gains, now is the time to seek other options. We know how important advertising is to online publications and this loss could potentially be made up through a digital publication app. In general, a digital publication application improves the overall value to print advertisers, giving them more reach.

With the new ad blocking apps, customers aren’t quite sure how to get their ads seen on mobile devices. This can be done by purchasing physical ad space in the publication and converting the paper product to digital solution! The advertisers ad will reside in the digital publication on a page – no blocking! Leaving a full page space for the advertiser will ensure that the ad will be seen. We can add links redirecting to their website and/or an email address.

Consumers go online to read the digital publication and chat with friends, so the ads created should drive brand awareness and peak a user’s interest. Banner ads can be highly effective but they need to be created properly. Google Marketing just wrote a great article about creative and effective banner ads. The three principles they point out are to be compelling, concise and clear. They go into a lot more detail, so I suggest visiting Think With Google for more information.

Once customers are informed and headed in the right direction with advertising it’s time to give us a call. Our digital publication consultants can help guide you through the process and offer some pretty amazing features to make your digital product stand out from the rest.

Branding is much more than a logo or graphic. Your brand is a representation of your company’s mission and personality. When you showcase your brand, you are leaving a lasting impression on your customers. Chances are you already have a logo, color scheme and website design by the time you are sending your digital publication files over to Dirxion. And we love to use all of these elements to personalize your digital publication to reflect and extend your brand.

Dirxion is hands on when it comes to designing your interface. We take all of our customers input seriously, from the toolbar, to the tabs, to the footer, and even the help file – we customize your digital publication to your highest of standards. We have some samples below to show you how far and wide we go in getting you the best representation in your Compass interface.

Starting off with Sams Club, who services over 47 million members and is the 8th largest U.S. retailer, they wanted a simple and clean look, branded nicely to match their color scheme.

Next we will showcase Stihl, the world’s best chain saws and other handheld power equipment. Their digital catalog reflects a sleek and strong design, just like their tools. They wanted to add customization into their product detail pop-ups. Once you find a product, you can click the item and view the layout, a product video and instruction manual. All the information you need is in the product details box.

Baker Furniture has a style that is sleek yet classic and they wanted to extend that style to their digital catalog interface. Our design team made custom modifications to the landing page; including the toolbar, custom buttons and logo size. Baker was more than happy to send over design files for us to modify and fit into our product and the end result is simply breathtaking.

Ballard Design has captured the look and eclectic feel of a European open-air market! They obviously wanted to showcase this in their interface and make it feel as though you were still walking thru the market and shopping, only online! To keep their custom unique look Ballard Design requested a unique landing page with a search option, a transparent toolbar, and customized email and share message.

MSC Industrial Supply is the leading North American distributor of metalworking and maintenance, repair and operation (MRO) products and services. Go to any page on their website and their blue catalog tab will always be on the left. Easily access their digital catalog by clicking the tab and it opens directly into their website! Their latest custom addition is the banner in the toolbar. Using your own website is a great way to show-off your digital publication.

We like to use custom interfaces for our digital catalogs that we develop as well! We are not sure if you have seen our 2014 Gift Guide, but we went over the top in giving off that holiday vibe. And even beyond the interface graphics and hilarious gifts, we added a nice little hover effect to the product tags, giving it a some much needed holiday sparkle. And by-the-way, there are only 14 more Fridays until Christmas 2015! We better get to work on our next guide!

The options to extend your brand to the Compass interface are endless. And like we stated above, we take your feedback and ideas and try to create a digital masterpiece. So the next time you work with us, please let your project coordinator know how we can customize your interface. If you need a little guidance our graphics team is here to help. We want you to have a digital publication to reflect what’s truly unique to your company.

As always our friendly sales team is available to answer any questions you might have. If you have any questions please contact us at 1.888.391-0202 or email us at sales@dirxion.com.

Yesterday was officially the last day for Google Catalogs. Are you prepared with a new solution or did your digital catalog disappear? If the latter of the two happened, we’re here to provide a fresh start with Dirxion Compass. Our Compass product is an HTML5 digital publication experience creating digital catalogs, directories, newspapers, magazines, flyers and travel guides. Compass is more than just a PDF, it acts as an interactive extension of your brand. Change your users experience into something completely different and unique.

Someone from our friendly sales team would love to hear your needs and provide a free demo. If you have any questions please contact our sales team at 888.391.0202 or email us at sales@dirxion.com.

Recently, Mozilla released a new update with Adobe Flash disabled, by default. Flash had two unpatched hacking vulnerabilities. Abode rushed out an update and Mozilla re-enabled it, however, you get a warning message before it plays. Facebook’s CSO is calling for the end of Flash, while Google announced they would block auto-playing Flash elements with the new stable Chrome release. http://bit.ly/1HRewN4

How does this reflect on your digital publication? If your publication is vintage and still using Flash elements, it’s time for a change! We’re ahead of the game and have been for some time, creating digital publications in HTML5. HTML has been around for over 20 years, it allows us to embed video clips and other multimedia tools. One of the main benefits is that HTML5 does not require a plugin, it can run on any computer or mobile device. Don’t be limited with the use of Flash.

Take your digital publication to the next level and give users a full experience. Call our friendly sales team at 888.391.0202 or email at sales@dirxion.com and they can help get you started.